The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #126584 Message #2813052
Posted By: jacqui.c
15-Jan-10 - 05:21 PM
Thread Name: BS: The latest on Kendall (updated 2011)
Subject: BS: The latest on Kendall
This is going on email, Mudcat and Facebook.
Kendall had his latest bout with surgery today, ostensibly to remove a further cancer from his vocal cord. Unfortunately, once they got in there, his surgeon found that the vocal cords were totally shot, with cancer spreading and radiation having done the rest of the damage. As a result there is too much damage to be able to do anything via the mouth.
Dr Zeitels now tells us that he will need to do a partial laryngectomy, taking away the infected skin on Kendall's throat, which Dr Z. thinks is connected to the vocal cord problem, and then to take away and replace his larynx, using donated aorta for that job.
The surgery will require the talents of Dr Z., a cardiac surgeon and a plastic surgeon. We are being allowed to wait until after the Grammys, at the end of the month, but it must be done then.
Kendall will be in hospital for at least two weeks afterward and then there will be work needed to tweak the new materiel to give some voice, over a period of time. How long this will take and what it will entail we don't know right now – we're both rather shellshocked.